Sunday morning talking heads

AllahpunditPosted at 8:01 am on March 18, 2018

Imagine being a Sunday-show booker trying to stay on top of the news with your guest list. The Secretary of State just got fired. A new top economic advisor just got hired. Bob Mueller just subpoenaed the Trump Organization. The president just joined a hush-money lawsuit involving a porn star. The former number two at the FBI got canned two days before his pension kicked in. The new CIA nominee may get borked for her role in torture. There may or may not be a presidential summit with North Korea in the works. Around half the cabinet’s on the chopping block.

Right, almost forgot: The GOP just lost a House special election in the heart of Trump Country, in a district won by POTUS by 20 points. I had to check our archives to confirm that that was five days ago. I could have sworn it was three weeks ago.

Anyway. To the extent there’s a star guest this morning I suppose it’s Rand Paul, who announced a few days ago that he’d oppose the confirmations of Mike Pompeo at the State Department and Gina Haspel at CIA. Paul’s vote probably won’t matter to the former, as Pompeo was confirmed easily last year. It could matter a lot to the latter, who may face party-line opposition from Democrats due to her role in the enhanced interrogation program. Unless John McCain, who’s also chilly towards Haspel, shows up and votes yes, Paul’s opposition could be decisive. He’ll be on “Face the Nation” and “State of the Union” to face questions about whether he owes Haspel an apology after relying on Pro Publica’s now-retracted story about her in announcing his no vote on her nomination.

Elsewhere this morning, Trump’s two most prominent Republican critics in the Senate will be making the rounds to inveigh against this week’s chaos. Jeff Flake will follow Paul on “State of the Union” to present his omnibus anti-Trump case while Bob Corker will follow Paul on “Face the Nation.” Corker’s in an interesting position because he reportedly had been rethinking his decision to retire this year and was lobbying POTUS for an endorsement to try to push Marsha Blackburn out of the primary. That didn’t happened. Will Corker turn on him now? Remember, he’s the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee so he’ll have plenty to say about the firing of Rex Tillerson, whom he once described as one of the people protecting the country from Trumpy chaos. If Corker’s back to being a strong-form anti-Trumper, he’s probably going to let POTUS have it over how T-Rex’s firing was handled.

If none of that grabs you, media whore Adam Schiff will be the lead guest on “This Week” to chat about Russiagate. And Trey Gowdy, who’s also headed for retirement and has been wandering off the reservation lately in praising Bob Mueller, will appear on “Fox News Sunday” to discuss the same. The full line-up is at the AP.